The present invention relates to irrigation sprinklers and especially to sprinklers of the type having a fixed nozzle directing water from a water supply under pressure against a water deflector which deflects the water into a sprinkling pattern while forcing the deflector head to rotate.
It has been common in the past to provide wobbling sprinkler heads to wobble the sprinkler head for a better distribution of the water being deflected. Typical prior U.S. patents for wobbling sprinkler heads can be seen in Applicant's U.S. pat. No. 5,950,927 to Elliott et al. for a wobbling sprinkler head for use in irrigation systems so that instead of being rotated in a smooth rotation, a water distribution head wobbles in a rotating fashion to provide a more even distribution of water. In Applicant's U.S. patent to Sullivan et al. U.S. pat. No. 5,381,960, a wobbling irrigation sprinkler head includes a magnet to provide for an initial tilt of the sprinkler head. The sprinkler head has a base for attaching to a pipe, such as in a central water supply conduit, which base has a nozzle mounted therein for directing water against a wobbling water deflecting head movably attached to the base. The water deflecting head causes the deflector to rotate and wobble.
In the Hunter U.S. Pat. No. 4,398,666, a stream rotor sprinkler has a rotating head and a crown configured stream deflector positioned about the spray head to deflect water spray from a nozzle in the spray head. The deflector is moved in an eccentrically revolving and rotating motion relative to the sprinkler housing and spray head in response to spray head rotation imparted by a cam on the spray head. In the Sweet U.S. Pat. No. 5,439,174, a nutating sprinkler is provided having a body portion having a nozzle on one end and a cap assembly at an opposite end. A spray plate is used to deflect and distribute water and the distribution distributing grooves are formed to rotate the spray plate which is supported on a universal joint in a manner to cause the spray plate to wobble in one direction of rotation when struck by the stream emitted from the nozzle. This sprinkler is provided with conical gear teeth having stator gear teeth meshing with rotor gear teeth. The Sesser U.S. Pat. No. 5,671,886 is a rotary sprinkler stream interrupter. The stream interrupter is mounted loosely for eccentric rotation about the center axis and has a plurality of stream deflector fingers. This patent also provides a viscous brake or rotor motor of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. RE 33,823 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,796,811 and is used to slow the rotation of the rotor plate. A similar U.S. Patent to Sesser U.S. Pat. No. 5,372,307 shows a similar rotary sprinkler stream interrupter.
The present rotating sprinkler head is of the wobbling type which includes a sprinkler base attachable to a water supply and having a fixed nozzle for directing water therefrom against a water deflector which is rotated by the water hitting the deflector surface of the deflector. Annular gears are used between the sprinkler base and the water deflector which gears have different numbered teeth to ensure that the gears never fully mesh which causes the water deflector to tilt relative to the sprinkler base and also controls the rotation of the sprinkler water deflector to prevent uncontrolled rotation and facilitate initiating the wobbling motion.
The wobbling rotation is controlled by the set of partially meshing gears including a fixed set of gear teeth on the base and a rotating pair of gear teeth on the rotating water deflector.